Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

Cheng was waiting for him on a bench near the Park Lane entrance, and though he was certain she saw him coming, she didn't move until he'd reached her.

"You're late." She said it mildly and didn't bother to look at him, instead keeping her eyes on a couple picnicking with their two children some twenty feet away.

"Tube's still fouled," Crocker said, which was the only explanation he was willing to give, and truly the only explanation necessary. It had been just six days since the strikes, and even with crews working around the clock, the Central and Northern Lines were still down, and the Bakerloo had resumed service only that morning, and even that was limited. The economic impact of the closures had yet to be measured, but traffic in Central London had predictably become even more of a nightmare than it already was.

Cheng got off the bench, adjusting the linen jacket she was wearing. The jacket was navy blue, and the blouse beneath it a pearl white, and her trousers, linen as well, were black. She watched him take in the wardrobe, then looked him over in turn and cracked a smile.

"You must be burning up."

Crocker grunted, pulling his cigarettes from his pocket and getting one lit. It had turned unseasonably hot in the past week, and the air in the city had been still and heavy. Depending on where you were, you could still catch the scent of the smoke. Standing in his three-piece suit, Crocker felt as if he might spontaneously combust.

Cheng turned and began walking, heading deeper into the park, and Crocker fell in beside her. He had almost a full foot on her, and a stride that could easily outdistance Cheng's own, but the walking was habit as much as the meetings were, and they'd long ago worked out a rhythm. Cheng had been posted to London as the CIA resident a year after Crocker had ascended to D-Ops, and though they had never interacted in the field prior to that point, they instantly saw in each other a kindred spirit or, at the least, an ally against a common foe-the bureaucrats. Cheng would always put America's concerns first, as Crocker would put England's, but the friendship that existed between them was honest, if shaped by the respective demands of their assignments.

In the main, SIS needed the CIA more than the CIA needed SIS. But not always, and Cheng was wise enough to see that, even if her bosses back in Virginia weren't.

They walked, taking in the park, the smell of the grass and the trees, the summer hour. Scattered on the lawns, Londoners sunbathed or took lunch or kicked footballs, but it was quieter than normal, and Crocker knew there were fewer people out and about. That, and the abrupt lack of tourism, gave the park a strangely empty air.

"How're Jenny and the girls?" Cheng asked.

"Fine. I'd ask how whoever you're seeing is, but you're not seeing anyone."

Cheng smirked. "Not that you know of, at least."

Crocker blew smoke from the corner of his mouth. "So what do you have?"

"You talked to Rayburn?"

"Not since yesterday afternoon."

"He'll be getting our analysis of the tape sometime today. He'll be able to tell you everything I can."

"Angela."

"You are an impatient man."

"I have an impatient C, who apparently has an impatient Prime Minister. They want action, and they can't have that without a target."

"Speaking of action. Quite the stunt your Mister Kinney pulled on Tuesday morning."

"That wasn't Kinney, that was Chace."

"Chace killed three suspected terrorists in one sitting? There are folks back home who'd give her a medal."

"Four, actually," Crocker corrected. "One of them died in hospital from injuries sustained at the scene."

Cheng pursed her lips in a silent whistle of appreciation.

"It wasn't her fault," Crocker said, far more defensively than he'd intended. "They'd been made, there was reason to believe there was an explosive on scene, they had to move."

"Was there?"

"Was there what?"

"An explosive?"

Crocker flicked his cigarette away, watching it bounce off the gravel into the grass.

"It hadn't been assembled yet."

"You can't really take chances with that, though, can you."

"Which is something I've been trying to explain to Mister Kinney since Tuesday afternoon." Crocker glanced down at her. "The tape, Angela."

"It's definitely Harakat ul-Mujihadin, this new wing, the Abdul Aziz faction."

"You've confirmed it?"

Cheng nodded. "They've got this program back at Langley, it can take the facial characteristics off an image, a photo or a video or whatever, run it against a database, establish an ID. It's pretty neat."

"Yes, we have that program, too."

"Difference is, ours works." She shot him a quick grin. "The young guy on the tape is named Tariq Ahmad Dar. He is-or was-a HUM militant out of Kashmir. We have intelligence that says Abdul Aziz recruited him for his faction in late spring last year."

"Where'd you get this?"

"Some of it from the Khalid Shaikh Muhammad bust. You remember the mad scramble we all went on after he was taken into custody?"

"Painfully," Crocker said. Muhammad had been, at the time, the al-Qaeda military chief. His capture had netted hundreds of pages of scattered intelligence, ranging from operations in progress to hints and whispers of other plans in development, most of which later turned out to be suspect when the Americans discovered a Syrian-manned al-Qaeda link to the prisoners in Guantanamo.

"Dar was on the watch list that came out of the bust."

"Almost all of that intelligence has been downgraded as a result of the compromised source. That's not enough."

"We have other means of verification, as I said."

"I'm not going to go to C with the fruits of your blown networks. Not on this."

Cheng's expression soured and hardened. "Not everything was blown by the Syrians."

"Angela, the CIA has been relying on networks ten and fifteen years old, built by agents later exposed as doubles. Between Ames, Hansen, and Wu-Tai Chin, your HUMINT has been shit, and the Company refuses to redress the situation. Ames himself recruited the majority of your informants out of Egypt and Afghanistan, agents later linked to al-Qaeda or al-Qaeda factions, and some of whom had direct contact with UBL. Unless you can verify an alternate source, it's fucking trash, no matter what your computers are saying."

Cheng glared. "The Company has done-is doing-everything it can to restore its security."

"It could start by admitting how bad the breaches were."

"I think we have."

Crocker snorted.

"I can't compromise the source, Paul. It's not my operation, and even if it was, you know I'm not going to share that kind of intel with you. Certainly not in the middle of Hyde fucking Park."

"Then, as I say, I can't run with it."

Cheng stopped on the path, forcing Crocker to stop as well and to turn back to her. Three young men walked by, two of them arguing with the third. Crocker heard just enough of their conversation to determine that they were discussing a woman.

When the three were well out of earshot, Cheng said, "We have someone inside."

Crocker raised an eyebrow. "Since when?"

She shook her head. "No. But we trust the source, and the source says that Tariq Ahmad Dar was HUM-AA. Dar was in a group of half a dozen HUM regulars who were flown to Saudi earlier that year, recruited by Abdul Aziz for broader operations."

They resumed walking, Crocker thinking on it. When he spoke, it was sourly, saying, "C will be delighted. You've just established a link between HUM-AA and al-Qaeda."

"Yeah, but I can establish a link between the Red Crescent and al-Qaeda, and so can you. You can't take it to the bank."

"Why bring them to Saudi?"

"Hell if I know. They probably ended up in a training camp somewhere teaching new recruits."